Vanuatu’s MOH conducts refresher training in all TB labs

A refresher training has been carried out in all provincial Tuberculosis laboratories in Vanuatu amidst the rising cases of the bacterial infection in the country.

The training will ensure all lab officers maintain the knowledge and skills at all times and to ensure that all sputum smear are of quality, reliable and economical.

The training was organised by the Ministry of Health through the tuberculosis Unit.

Sputum smear is a very effective tool used to diagnose TB disease in a health setting. Sputum are usually requested by doctors or nurses and are collected from TB suspects early in the morning for two or three days. After four days the patient gets the result back.

This is a tool that helps community nurses/doctors to manage Tuberculosis.

Apart from Microscope, Gene X-Pert Machine is another TB diagnostic tool that we have in our three hospitals (Vila Central Hospital, Santo Hospital, Lenakel hospital) and by the end of this year another 3 Gene X-Pert Machines will be installed in Norsup, Lolowai and Sola hospital. This same machine is used to test for COVID-19.

Few activities such as practical lessons on how to prepare sputum smears, registration of sputum smear, entering lab registration numbers and proper documentations using TB laboratory registration book.

Training finding shows that TB is still a challenge within the region despite having effective TB drugs in place. Almost half of the microscopists are aid nurses on permanent position that need upskilling in diagnose tuberculosis.

The feedback from the participants were very positive as the refresher training has enabled them to see a lot of improvements and hence perform well and be up to date with the use of new tools and changes related to clinical diagnosis as far as sputum smear microscopy is concern.

TB Unit under the Ministry of Health is planning to expand the services of sputum smear microscopy to all other health facilities throughout the country. They have been plans and its strategies in compacting the disease in terms of prevention, diagnosis, treatment and as well as contact tracing.

National Tuberculosis programme in partnership with the external partners are to ensure to procure important laboratory equipment as microscopies as target and case detection rates to be achieve.

A week training that was held recently in Luganville Santo was aimed at ensuring that each Provincial TB microscopist is capable of carrying out the sputum smear microscopy within their own setting.

The Ministry of Health will continue to move forward for a clear pathway for the trained microscopists be formalized for recognition per the requirements of Vanuatu Qualification Authority.